House Season 5 Episode 24

Both Sides Now

Recap

We love House. And we understand what they were trying to do with this end-of-the-season storyline. But in the end, it was a cheap trick to play on viewers.

We'll get to that shortly. In the meantime, an overview of other developments from the fifth season finale...

The Patient of the Week was a guy whose right and left brains weren't communicating. He couldn't control his left hand. Pretty cool stuff. As we'll get to momentarily, this was clear foreshadowing for House's condition, as the idea of who we really are and what sort of tricks our minds can play on us was at the center of this patient's tale.

Also, Cameron initially agreed to do away with her ex-husband's sperm in order to marry Chase. But he soon had a realization: she didn't have doubts about him or their marriage. She just didn't wanna kill the final reminder of a man she once loved. As a result, he kindly told her to keep the sperm (how often do you see that sentence, or sentiment, written?).

As part of the ending montage, Cameron and Chase got married.

On to the main, controversial storyline: throughout the episode, House tried to make Cuddy angry in order to determine her true feelings for him. He couldn't figure out her reaction to the hot sex they shared the night before. This was actually hilarious, as House tried to get actual evidence (such as a thermal scan) of Cuddy's feelings, with Wilson partly enbaling and partly scoffing at his BFF.

Late in the episode, though, it all became clear to House: the sex never happened. Everything from last week's episode - about Cuddy helping House detox from Vicotin - was made up. It was in House's head. Cuddy never came over, they never slept together and the real kicker, as House stood in Cuddy's office and realized all this, was that Amber never left his mind. She (and Kuter for a split second) showed up again and basically taunted House.

He had to admit he had a serious problem. He told Cuddy, who went and told Wilson. The episode ended with Wilson dropping House at a psychiatric hospital.

Look, the episode was well done and Hugh Laurie was tremendous, as always. But it's a very cheap trick to actually show a series of events (from last week) that never took place. It's tricking the audience. Yes, we're excited to see where this storyline goes and, yes, it was executed well by the show.

But there's no way we can ever fully get behind the concept of actually showing numerous scenes and then basically saying to loyal viewers: Fooled you!